Your Job: Love It or Loathe It?

In today’s competitive job market, finding the perfect fit with a top-notch company can sometimes feel like looking for a diamond in the rough. But with the right game plan, a healthy mindset, and some honest self-reflection, you can navigate your way through the job search process with confidence until you find what you’re looking for. Identifying what you really want and making sure it aligns with your unique abilities and career goals is key.

Assess where you are and who you are

Every individual’s career path and job search is different, so it’s important to understand your starting point, even if you’re currently employed and hate your job.

One of the best places to start is with a little discovery you can do online- on yourself. Personal and professional assessments are great and there are so many that are free. They are incredibly helpful in providing insights into your personality, interests, and strengths- some you may already know and some you may not. These tools help guide and provide clarity so you can make quicker decisions when opportunities show up in your life. Even if you feel like you know yourself, we all change over time. It’s worth investing time discovering or rediscovering what a computer may know about you, and with today’s A.I. tools, there’s a good chance it knows you better than you think. Many of these assessments take your answers and provide you with information that experts have poured thousands of hours and a ton of money into, all with the purpose to help you discover and pursue what truly drives you as an individual.

Figuring Out What You Really Want

When seeking a new opportunity and trying to find a great company to work for, you have to know what you want. Otherwise, how will you know you found it when it’s staring you in the face?

Consider the decisions you need to make to ensure you’re going to love what you do and where you work. Would you thrive better in a small company or do you prefer climbing the corporate ladder with a large company? How much do benefits matter and which ones do you need versus the ones that would be nice to have? What kind of schedule allows you to live the kind of life that would make you happy? Maybe working for a company that has a positive social impact is important for you or maybe you could care less. There’s a big difference when someone just needs a “job” or they’re looking for a long-term “Career”. The bottom line is, you need to know what you want, why you want it, and be able to articulate it with clarity and confidence. If you can’t, then you’ve got a little work to do before you should start your search.

Research plays a big role in your job search. Getting a better understanding of a company and their culture before you go to an interview is important and there’s plenty you can find out if you dig a little deeper beyond the surface-level info found on its website. Your interview with the company should be just as comprehensive as the process they use to interview you.

Collaboration

There’s no need to search for a new opportunity alone. There are so many available resources including networking platforms overflowing with professionals eager to help — the problem is, most people are too proud to ask for help. Consider leveraging recruiters, headhunters, services, and free resources to help guide your search. My company [re]start, is a good example and it’s FREE. There are plenty of us out there that want to help job-seekers- you just have to look. Sorry for the personal plug, but we’re the best so I figured it worth mentioning : )

Transparent and Authentic

Try taking off your mask or at least pull it down a bit and start being yourself. It’s one of the hardest things to do, but showing some vulnerability without having to wear your heart on your sleeve can go a long way. There’s nothing wrong revealing your true self. It’s real and rare. It’s also appreciated, undervalued, and a trait most people find refreshing. You’re more likely to have people want to help, introduce, or even hire you when you can learn how to be more comfortable being your true genuine self. Focusing so much on what others think is a waste of time. You should care, but not that much.

A Strong Personal Brand To Stand out

Gone are the days of scrolling through a sea of job posts that all look the same, spamming your resume to as many employers as possible, and hoping to hear back from someone- so why does everyone still do it?

To really stand out from other applicants tracked by AI-driven systems used by employers today, you have to learn how to customize your application based on the job description you want to pursue — tailoring is key. You can now start using A.I. Technology to do this for you with a click of a button, but make sure you edit your work to make sure it sincerely sounds like you.

Finding a great opportunity takes effort, investment, some new insights, and sometimes a different perspective. Do the hard work now rather than finding yourself miserable after months at a new job.

When in doubt, consider working for yourself. Becoming self-employed may seem impossible, but more and more people are realizing that things are changing so much in the job market that figuring out what your unique ability is, mastering a skill that others find valuable, is the way of the future of our work.

Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Seeing things like an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go start a new business (although, good for you if that sparks an insight). Rather view yourself as C.E.O. of “Y.O.U.” — My leadership coach used to say this all the time and it’s about owning your piece of everything you’re involved in — and let’s face it, if you’re not the C.E.O. of Y.O.U., who is?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how hard it must be for an entrepreneur to start a new business. The time, effort, and investment required is A LOT. Searching, finding, and landing a great job with a solid company shouldn’t be any different. The real difference lies in the thousands of nuances around all the research, due diligence, questions, discovery, patience, making tough decisions, and solving problems that entrepreneurs put themselves through. They don’t just look at a website and throw darts until something hits the board- so neither should you when you’re searching and applying for a job.